When Alex Rodriguez stood in an empty spare room adjacent to the visiting clubhouse underneath Detroit’s Comerica Park after the New York Yankees were embarrassingly swept out of the American League Championship Series last October, he took responsibility for his poor performance and said it was unacceptable based on his personal standards.

It was nice to hear that from the superstar third baseman since he’s been a guy who has always seemed to have an excuse for whatever the criticism of the month might have been throughout his career.

But then Dr. Bryan Kelly stepped in and wrote Rodriguez a convenient doctor’s note, pinned it to his shirt, patted him on the behind and told him to make sure the public read it in its entirety. And just like that, A-Rod standing in front of a hoard of voice recorders and cameras in Detroit dissolved into just another excuse.

The “note,” given to the New York Post first in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, said that Rodriguez’s left hip muscles had “just shut down” and become weak. Kelly, the co-director of the Center for Hip Pain and Preservation at the Hospital for Special Surgery, also said there was “no doubt” that A-Rod’s playoff humiliation that saw him get benched was caused by the injury. He hit .120 (3-for-25) with no extra-base hits and 12 strikeouts in the postseason.

I guess we can be thankful that this kind of thing didn’t come out during the World Series or in early November, when it would have seemed like much more of a cop out orchestrated by the player.

Rodriguez’s injury is a torn labrum and impingement in his left hip. The surgery to repair the area won’t be done until Jan. 16, according to The Associated Press.

Kelly told the Post that he believes allowing the inflammation to go down before the procedure will speed up the recovery process greatly. That would line Rodriguez up for a return to the Yankees shortly after the All-Star Break.

Kelly said the hip impingement is an ongoing injury and Rodriguez’s high pain tolerance and ability to compensate still allowed him to be productive at times. Eventually the discomfort became great enough that Rodriguez had to adjust his mechanics and basically swing the bat with almost all upper-body strength, which led to so many swings and misses.

“I don’t see how it would be possible,” Kelly told the Post regarding the ability of Rodriguez to be a successful hitter with that kind of injury.

The Yankees allowed Rodriguez to play through this injury because the player described discomfort more than pain. Rodriguez’s initial hip injury and examinations were on his right hip, not the left one. So that’s why he was still in the lineup for most of the postseason.

This injury is surely legitimate and there is no reason to doubt it’s why A-Rod performed poorly in the playoffs. The guy probably shouldn’t have even been out there, but then again it wasn’t like Eric Chavez or anyone else who could play third base gave the team a better option.

Still, it’s always something new with Rodriguez. There’s always a headline to be made, a reason for this or that. When the Yankees agreed to pay him so many millions of dollars – something that is not Rodriguez’s fault and he shouldn’t be blamed for what a team offered to throw at him – they didn’t expect these kinds of issues to be regular a regular occurrence.

But again, it’s A-Rod, and even when he stands up and accepts responsibility, you can bet there will be more to the story whether it be days or months after the fact.